Judith Egbas, MBA ’15 at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, helmed the first Smeal Africa Business Forum, which took place on the Penn campus in April, in order to educate attendees on the growing business opportunities in African countries.
Egbas, who come from Nigeria, said “I wanted to create an event where people could learn about African business. I came up with the idea after attending the Diwali event, which is an opportunity for MBA students to learn more about Indian culture.”
The Smeal Africa Business Forum took place with the partnership of the Black Graduate Students Association and the Forum on Black Affairs, in order to provide the programming for the event. The event’s sponsors included the African Studies Program, Caterpillar, Penn State Global Programs, the College of Arts and Architecture’s Office of Multicultural Programs, the Office for Educational Equity, and Smeal’s Diversity Enhancement Programs.
The program featured a keynote talk from Caterpillar’s Bill Lane ’75 Accounting. Caterpillar has a strong presence in Africa, according to Egbas, and is developing its strategy there. Lane serves as the company’s Washington director for governmental affairs. He is also co-president of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and co-chair of the U.S. Andean Free Trade Coalition.
Lane’s keynote talk, along with a following panel discussion, touched on both the opportunities and risks in the expanding African market. Some of the opportunities, Egbas explained, include the increase in literacy across the continent as well as the ubiquity of technology. “There has been a lot of investment into African business as well,” said Egbas. “A lot of educated Africans are going back to Africa to invest in businesses there.”Egbas says, however, that it’s important for people to remember that Africa includes a wide swath of cultures across the continent.“What people often forget about Africa is that there is a huge number of cultures and languages, and businesses have to be able to tailor their goods and their marketing to each of those segments,” said Egbas.
